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What drew you to the arts and humanities as your life’s work?
I came to this work through many doors—films that teach me to cut and stitch time, philosophy that sharpens questions, and, above all, the calm of nature. Nature doesn’t argue. It absorbs our mistakes, heals in its own rhythm, and, when needed, corrects us. From that silence, I learned design as both care and consequence.
How does your creative or scholarly practice connect with the world beyond the university?
My practice, 3h57m, partners with communities and collaborators to prototype “landscape as ecological infrastructure”— streets that slow and soak, roofs and terraces that harvest and cool, soils that store and filter, and planted assemblies that move water, air, and species. We test ideas through small built interventions, films, and fieldwork, then loop findings back into studios and public exhibitions. The goal is impact that is both environmental and civic.
What’s a project, performance, or piece of writing you’re especially excited about right now?
I’m developing Screen of Air—a mini greenhouse-scale film installation on “breathing” polycarbonate skins that fog and clear with ambient humidity. As the membrane shifts, so does the image, turning air and condensation into both subject and screen. It studies domestic hydrology, care, and the quiet labor of climate control we rarely see.
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Who or what has been a surprising influence or inspiration in your work?
Maintenance workers and vernacular builders—people who make comfort possible with ingenuity and repair—profoundly shape my work. I watch how they grade a yard to move water, stitch shade and ventilation into a house, and adapt daily objects—gutters, jars, racks, screens—so they channel air and moisture with precision. That quiet intelligence guides my design. I also draw inspiration from artists across fields: such as filmmakers Hong Sang-soo and Edward Yang, architect Kazuo Shinohara, writer Virginia Woolf, and artist Lee Ufan.
What role do you think the arts and humanities play in shaping community and culture today?
They cultivate the capacities we urgently need: to situate facts within meaning, to hold complexity without freezing, and to imagine otherwise. At a moment of climate and social precarity, the arts and humanities turn technical fixes into shared values and shared futures.
